Rogue Squadron- Autobots

Welcome to Rogue Squadron, pilot! In this series we will be looking at different squadrons you can fly in Fantasy Flight Games X-Wing miniatures game. We give you the squad, what expansion pack all of the upgrades come from and then give you the low down on how best to fly it. Strap in and get ready to fly…

All Wings Report In

Aggressor “IG-88C” (IG-2000 Expansion) (50 pts)

After you perform a boost action, you may perform a free evade action.

Title– IG-2000 (IG-2000Expansion): You have the pilot ability of each other friendly ship with the IG-2000 Upgrade card (in addition to your own pilot ability).
Elite Pilot Talent- Veteran Instincts (Millenium Falcon/Slave-1 Expansion): Increase your pilot skill value by 2
Modification- Autothrusters (Starviper Expansion)- When defending, if you are beyond Range 2 or outside the attacker’s firing arc, you may change 1 of your blank results to an evade result. You can equip this card only if you have the boost action icon.
Cannon- Autoblaster (B-wing/IG-2000 Expansions)- Attack (3, range 1): Attack 1 ship. Your results cannot be canceled by defense dice. The defender may cancel critical results before results.
System- Accuracy Corrector (IG-2000/Starviper Expansions)- When attacking, during the “Modify Attack Dice” step, you may cancel all of your dice results. Then, you may add 2 results to your roll. Your dice cannot be modified again during this attack.
Bomb- Seismic Charge (IG-2000/Slave-1/TIE Bomber Expansions)- When you reveal your maneuver dial, you may discard this card to drop 1 seismic charge token. This token detonates at the end of the Activation phase. When this bomb token detonates, each ship at Range 1 of the token suffers 1 damage. Then discard this token.
Illicit- Inertial Dampeners (IG-2000/Starviper Expansions)- When you reveal your maneuver, you may discard this card to instead perform a white [0] maneuver. Then receive 1 stress token.

Aggressor “IG-88D” (IG-2000 Expansion) (50 pts)

You may execute the (Left S-loop 3) or (Right S-loop 3) maneuver using the corresponding (Hard Left 3) or (Hard Right 3) template.

Title– IG-2000 (IG-2000Expansion): You have the pilot ability of each other friendly ship with the IG-2000 Upgrade card (in addition to your own pilot ability).
Elite Pilot Talent- Veteran Instincts (Millenium Falcon/Slave-1 Expansion): Increase your pilot skill value by 2
Modification- Autothrusters (Starviper Expansion)- When defending, if you are beyond Range 2 or outside the attacker’s firing arc, you may change 1 of your blank results to an evade result. You can equip this card only if you have the boost action icon.
Cannon- Autoblaster (B-wing/IG-2000 Expansions)- Attack (3, range 1): Attack 1 ship. Your results cannot be canceled by defense dice. The defender may cancel critical results before results.
System- Accuracy Corrector (IG-2000/Starviper Expansions)- When attacking, during the “Modify Attack Dice” step, you may cancel all of your dice results. Then, you may add 2 results to your roll. Your dice cannot be modified again during this attack.
Bomb- Seismic Charge (IG-2000/Slave-1/TIE Bomber Expansions)- When you reveal your maneuver dial, you may discard this card to drop 1 seismic charge token. This token detonates at the end of the Activation phase. When this bomb token detonates, each ship at Range 1 of the token suffers 1 damage. Then discard this token.
Illicit- Inertial Dampeners (IG-2000/Starviper Expansions)- When you reveal your maneuver, you may discard this card to instead perform a white [0] maneuver. Then receive 1 stress token.

Lock S-Foils in Attack Position

The most common term for dual Aggressors is “Brobots.” This is because they are both IG-88’s and share their pilot abilities. I’ve termed this one Autobots because of it’s use of Autoblasters and Autothrusters. Plus it just sounds awesome.

Normally autoblasters is a pretty bad use of your points. It’s limited to range 1 and, since all ships with a cannon slot, aside from the YT-2400, have a standard 3 attack, you’re sacrificing a bonus attack dice. Plus it’s 5 points. While the guaranteed damage from any regular hits is really nice, it adds up to being not cost effective most of the time.

But enter IG-88. This ship has the perfect set of upgrades to make full use of the autoblaster. Cannon slot + system slot + natural boost ability. By ticking up to PS8 through the use of VI it allows you to move after most other ships, boost into range 1, get a free evade from IG-88C, and then perform an attack that will do a minimum of two damage (thanks to Accuracy Correctors).

The first time I played this squad I managed to catch Soontir Fel right in the cross hairs of both my ships. He just died, no dice rolled necessary. Now this was a once in a lifetime occurrence as Fel was wedged in a position where he couldn’t boost or barrel roll out of arc, something he would normally do. But it’s very satisfying to just wipe one of the most elusive ships from the board and there be nothing he can do about it.

So your goal with this squad is to get in close and stay there. Unfortunately, the boost on these ships is both a blessing and a curse. Because of the large base, sometimes you just don’t have enough room to boost. Range 2 is your bane. You can’t use autoblasters and autothrusters won’t trigger unless it’s against a turret.

Aside from that you do have some other advantages. Accuracy Correctors are great for ensuring you are always scoring two hits (even if they aren’t guaranteed damage beyond range 1). This allows you to make better use of your S-loops/K-turns without fear of having unmodified attacks. You can also take the evade action more often to help keep yourself alive.

The Seismic Charge is great for discouraging people from following you and Inertial Dampeners is very useful for putting on the brakes and letting them shoot on past.

Variations

Infinite. There are so many variations on dual Aggressors they each qualify as their own builds. Sticking to this one’s core of autoblasters though, you could drop Seismic Charges, Inertial Dampeners and VI in order to add in a Mangler Cannon to each ship. You lose some versatility but gain a good cannon attack from every other range outside of 1. You would probably want to switch out one of the pilots for IG-88B so you get the extra attack in the event of a miss.

Another alternative is to switch the Bombs and Inertial Dampeners for a Hotshot Blaster. This saves you from those times where Fel just slips in behind you. And since you still have Accuracy Corrector you don’t have to worry about dropping a three point card and then rolling all blanks.